September 13, 2010 - 8:30 p.m.
In my glass house my concerns are several
first there are the neighbours, who have been cast as crazies, because I happened to see them one night, through my window, poised at the kitchen sink, eyes ahead, ready for their close-up in my paranoia
second, visit the scene of the crime,
the kitchen,
where you made layered dips and where we had to keep your dog from eating off the counter,
i still have remnants of those days, cleaned up now, though the dirt remains and the mice are knawing now at the crumbs and stains
left there, though the towel is clean and folded,
I have picked up the shit from the yard,
this is a pot and kettle situation
and the mice are near-sighted.
Everything around me feels familiar, yet from the edges, inward, my life seems too transparent.
Pieces of you keep slipping in,
I find them in places where we are everywhere
and I know, I know
that you came here with your white flag, white horse speeches and I turned so cold
"this is not the way I planned it to be"
because I was not the girl you came for
she left about two years ago,
came back briefly, for a moment, to see if you still had that heart she lent you
and I realized,
knees on floor, stomach caved from being nauseous for days, that you would never be that girl again
who made my knees weak for the right reasons
and this is playful, because I need a story, a narrative where crumbs lead to candy houses and a bad idea, not hunger and emotional waste
in a land of myopic mice,
in a land of myopic mice
their tiny waste fills corners i accidently stub my fingers into, looking for utensils, grossed out when I realize what i have touched.
Dropping hints, dropping suggestions
so that I have to wonder
on my own,
what dirt I will find next.
So I stop cleaning
and let myself sink,
dirt up to my ankles.
Chin high.
I know I have power, because I have seen the cracks in you
I know I could drive the chisel and find a version they would never recognize
They don't know that by hurting me
they are pushing my hand to the mallet
and if I crack, you're going with me,
our separate ways.
And it won't be me that falls to pieces.
I am left scrubbing clean the inside of my body, trying to get rid of the scratches
hard edges against too soft surfaces.
You let them save you now, a role you never should have let them take,
you should have said, loudly,
I am the snake, I am the snake,
and though you have crawled, and they've seen it. You had me on my belly, crying 'why?'
why did i let you? if i had known
that you would let them kick my knees out now, to save you, to save face,
like pretty girls in high school,
the calculated cool and talons
fake pretty, fake nice.
I want to strip the beds of you.
regret my open arms
take all that wasted openness and turn it inside out
out.
so that again we pretend that there is an us and them
opposites we need now
in this fishbowl house of our past,
left to live in
in the present
alone,
except for the cats.
And it is only cause I know
how badly you want back in
to my head
to their warm fur
to the groundedness I gave you
the confidence you wore
the fiest to step on stage
knowing i had you
propped up
while I stuffed you with everything I had inside,
leaving almost nothing
for myself.
And now it's me,
with the cat on my lap
listening to how hard Thursday was for you.
Feeling invisible,
while I felt so watched, all eyes averted,
so deliberate.
and you had the nerve to feel something, when I am so good at looking like I don't
you did not like my talent
that talent of cleaning the glass so well that you can see me inside,
every scratch, and see yourself too.
Separated by the pane you put there.
"sitting in my glasshouse
while your ghost is sleeping down the hall
watching the little birds fly
kamikaze missions into the walls
think i'm gonna stay in today
sit on my couch and watch them fall
life just keeps getting harder
and it just keeps getting harder to hide
the darker it is around me
the easier it is to see inside
and outside the glass
the whole world is magnified
and it's half an inch
from here to the other side
i guess that push has come to this
so i guess this must be shove
but before you throw those stones at me
tell me what's your house made of
and if you think you know what i'm doing wrong
you're going to have to get in line
yeah but for the purposes of this song
let's just say i'm doing fine
i guess i'm doing fine
trapped in my glasshouse
crowd has been gathering since dawn
i make a pot of coffee
while catastrophe awaits me out on the lawn
i think i'm going to stay in today
pretend like i don't know what's going on
yeah, i guess that push has come to this
so i guess this must be shove
but before you throw those stones at me
tell me what's your house made of
and if you think you know what i'm doing wrong
you're going to have to get in line
so for the purposes of this song
let's just say i'm doing fine
i think i'm doing finedoing finedoing fine
i am sitting in my glass house
i am sitting in my glass house
i am sitting in my glass house
i am
i am"
going to be the piper.
